Apple TV+ joins the streaming price hike brigade

Apple TV+ is the latest premium streaming service to push a price hike.

Apple TV+, the streaming home to popular series such as Ted Lasso and Severance, announced it is raising its monthly price from $6.99 to $9.99, while its annual plan jumps from $69 to $99. Existing Apple TV+ subs will see the price increase on their next billing renewal date.

This price hike comes about a year after Apple raised the price on the service to $6.99, $2 more than its original monthly price of $4.99.

In a widely distributed statement, Apple attributed its latest increase to the service's focus on delivering high-quality content and new features.

Additional price hikes

Apple is also raising the rate on Apple Arcade ($4.99 to $6.99 per month) and Apple News+ ($9.99 to $12.99 per month).

Apple has not announced a subscriber count for Apple TV+, a service that debuted in the fall of 2019. But this price hike follows a string of them as premium streaming services continue to apply more focus on profitability over sheer subscriber growth.

Among recent examples, Netflix raised the price for some customers in the US, UK and France, a move that could help to broaden the reach of its new ad-supported tier.

Meanwhile, Amazon will soon start to insert ads into the baseline Prime Video service and require customers to pay an additional $2.99 per month for the ad-free version. Disney has also pushed ahead with price increases for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. The price on Paramount+ also went up amid the company's plan to launch a version of the service that integrates content from Showtime. NBCU raised pricing on Peacock's ad-free and ad-supported tiers in August.

Related:Netflix price hikes could spark growth for streamer's ad-supported tier